Sandoval: I never said my kids don’t look Hispanic

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | 1:47 p.m.

But that's what Univision's news director says GOP nominee Brian Sandoval said in an interview with the Spanish-language station. Adriana Arévalo wrote about the interview ina scathing piece in El Tiempo, and I asked Sandoval about it during a taping of "Face to Face" on Tuesday, which will air tonight. Sandoval twice denied ever having said it, which caused us to try to get the video of the interview from Univision. So far, we have been unsuccessful.

Here's the El Tiempo piece and I will update this post if we obtain the video -- someone is wrong, either the news director or the candidate:

Poor Brian!

By Adriana Arévalo, News Director, Univision Nevada

Special to El Tiempo

All of a sudden, it seems Brian Sandoval is Hispanic. How curious! The saying that you never know where life will take you is definitely true. In fact, on his life journey, Sandoval must have taken a fall, lost his memory and woken up believing what his campaign advisors are telling him -- “you’re Hispanic.”

Poor guy, he’s going to wind up with a worse identity crisis than Sharron Angle, who was Republican, then Democrat, and once again Republican. Today she admires Reagan, but before she didn’t, and now, with the Tea Party’s support, she not only believes she is God’s messenger, but also doesn’t even know where she’s from and shows it every time she speaks in public. Or at least, when her staff lets her speak, because now, in the best Palin style, they have prohibited her from doing so, for her own good and that of the congregation.

As for Sandoval, many people were left with their mouths wide open (including this columnist) with the candidate’s commercial recently launched on Hispanic television, which literally says, “With your help, Brian Sandoval can become the first Hispanic Governor in the history of Nevada.” It took a few minutes for me to recover after hearing that for the first time. I couldn’t believe it. Not even Bush, in his best moments of stuttering and muddled thinking, had shocked me as much. I thought it was one of his opponent’s commercials, or maybe it was meant to be ironic. But no, it wasn’t part of the Democratic strategy, or a parody; it seemed like a bad joke, but it was real.

Now it’s official, folks. Brian Sandoval is Hispanic! Personally, I’m worried about the candidate’s emotional stability. His advisors should be more careful about what they have him do, say and not say. First he was in favor of driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, then he thought it over and said no. In reality, it was his campaign directors who thought it over, because a Republican can’t think like that.

Before he launched such an affirmation on television, his campaign must have psychologically prepared him so he wouldn’t suffer some sort of trauma upon seeing himself identified as Hispanic. It wasn’t long ago that he said in an interview on Univision that he vehemently supported Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. In reference to the same law, he was asked how he would feel if he his children were stopped in the street and asked for their papers. He answered, with a note of pride in his voice, “my children don’t look Hispanic.”

So it is that he is Hispanic without being proud of the fact; he is not sure how to be Hispanic and clearly doesn’t understand what it means to be one of us in this country. One thing we can’t deny is that he sure looks Hispanic -- but not all that glitters is gold!

It is said that all is fair in love and war, and elections, especially these ones, are a war without mercy. I suppose all being fair in this case means trying to brainwash voters into believing that this man who appears to be Mexican -- but doesn’t speak Spanish and is anti-immigrant -- is like us. What I would like to know is if they have finished convincing him, because in the end, the least-assured that he is Hispanic is poor Brian.